Foxhunter:
First, this battery was not properly packaged for shipment. In this
event the battery was inside a personal flashlight inside a personal
backpack.
Second, the malfunctioning battery was NOT a name brand produced or
purchased within the USA. It was one produced and procured in China.
I had some experience with lithium batteries in a former life in the marine electronics business, EPIRB/SART, stuff like that. We had some brand new batteries stored at a location in Asia and came in one morning to find the office filled with soot and smelling like....., not nice.
The battery that went bang was inside a sturdy plastic container with a cap screwed on tightly. The cap had blown off and dented the steel shells and the walls. The explosion did not start a fire, but only because there was not any flammable material close to the unruly battery. The whole office/storage area of approximately 200 meters square had to be completely washed down twice to remove the soot, I can only imagine what it had been like when all this took place. All this from a battery weighting around 300g and not being manufactured in China, but by a well known and respected "Western" company.
"Properly packed" as dangerous goods would not have made much of a difference, more likely kindled the fire.
Per